Albert Axelrod

Albert "Albie" Axelrod (February 12, 1921 – February 24, 2004) was an American foil fencer.

He was a five-time Olympian for the US, won a bronze medal at the 1960 Olympics, and was the only American men's foil fencer to reach the finals at the world championships until Gerek Meinhardt won a bronze medal in the 2010 World Fencing Championships. the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who had fled the pogroms, and grew up in the Bronx. A heart murmur kept him from participating in most sports, so his mother encouraged him to learn fencing at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. After graduation in 1938, he studied with 1920 Olympic champion Giorgio Santelli and won amateur titles as a member of the Salle Santelli club. His greatest athletic achievement was winning the bronze medal in Individual Foil competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.

Pan American Games He was also a member of four U.S. Pan American Games teams. He won three team gold medals, one team silver, and four individual silvers in Foil.

Personal Professionally Axlerod worked for the Gruman Corporation as an electrical engineer, but would drive to Manhattan to practice fencing three nights a week. He died of a heart attack at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx on February 24, 2004. He left a wife, Henrietta, one son, and a daughter.

He was inducted into the USFA Hall of Fame in 1974.